Fill er UP!

Crude is almost touching $71 a barrel, currently sitting at $70.74. It has gone up almost $2 in the last day. This is going to be a long summer

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

From what I have read it seems this isn't the peak either.

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[kc2006]

What do you guys think is a good price to enact a fuel surcharge? All my current customers are priced with fuel at $2.50 a gallon, so i'm somewhat safe on them, but for new customers I want to include in the contracts a fuel surcharge over X amount per gallon. I was thinking $3.50 a gallon is when I'd put a surcharge on. I was going to go $3, but heck we're almost at $3 now so that wouldn't work, I can just bid accordingly using the current price of $3 a gallon.

[Steve]

That sounds resonable.

CNN - Oil smashes record, settles over $71
Iran worries and Nigeria supply disruptions push price of crude to record trading and closing high; fund buying provides support.

yup, I just checked www.nymex.com and it's like $71.20 right now

I personally don't agree with a fuel surcharge. Because of two reasons:
1. How are you going to keep track of the gas prices going up and down during the day and justifing that to your customers
2. This is big kicker. If gas prices go down, will you give customers a refund? Probably not.

That is why I feel that from now on, all new work, so have a higher price tag on it. Bascially, make your services a higher price, don't add that fuel surcharge as an additional price. For example, if you are charging $50 an hour right now, raise it up to $52 an hour.

[Steve]

Great insight.

[kc2006]

Thanks for the infro Troy. I had the same thoughts about trying to justify when the fuel was up.

So far everything is being priced on a higher scale, so I'm good for now. I'm just looking for future when/if fuel jumps to who knows $5 a gallon.

I know what you mean. Currently for misc work rate I am going to raise my hourly rate to $52 an hour, from my current $50. I am ok for spring and fall clean ups, currently sitting at $72 an hour. I raised those up last year, and so far no one is really concerned with that price.

Also I am debating about either to raise fertilizer prices for new customers, or try to find a cheaper, yet still great quality product.

Also how I am fixing the problem is by lowering my expenses on this end. It has been really hard so far, because two years ago, I went through a major expense cutting technique, which worked greatly and I continue to use, but I am maxed out at how much more I can cut. The next things on my list to cut are cell phone and credit card processing.

[Steve]

What % of your customers pay by credit card now?

that is so funny you mentioned about the credit card thing, because I just finished off some sheets to look at the numbers again. Last year I look at credit card expenses, vs. sales was last November.

But I would say only about 1% of my customers use credit card